BIDV office during trading hours. The bank's shares finished lower yesterday, weighed by selling pressure. Photo vietnamplus.vn

HÀ NỘI — The market settled mixed on Monday as rising selling force in the afternoon session weighed on many pillar stocks, especially in the realty sector. 

The benchmark VN-Index on the Hồ Chí Minh Stock Exchange (HoSE) reversed the morning course, ended lower on Monday. Of which, it fell by 2.76 points, or 0.23 per cent, to 1,176.49 points. 

The index opened the morning trade on a positive note, backed by public investment and livestock stocks on news about the Long Thành International Airport project and higher live hog prices. 

The market's breadth was still in positive territory with more stocks increasing. However liquidity was lower than the previous trade, of which matching value on the southern market declined by 11.4 per cent to VNĐ10.08 trillion (nearly US$430 million), equivalent to a matching volume of 481 million stocks. 

The benchmark index's downside was due to stronger selling pressure in the afternoon session. The 30 biggest stocks on HoSE tracker VN30-Index also decreased by 5.86 points, or 0.48 per cent, to end the trading day at 1,214.28 points. 

Data compiled by vietstock.vn showed that Vingroup (VIC) lost the most yesterday with a fall of 2.3 per cent. It was followed by Vinhomes (VHM), down 1.67 per cent. Another stock in the trio Vin family - Vincome Retail (VRE) - also posted a small decline of 0.57 per cent. Development Investment Construction JSC (DIG) saw a loss of nearly 5.5 per cent. 

Bank stocks were weighed by selling pressure, with more ticker symbols reported poor performance in the afternoon trade like BIDV (BID), Vietcombank (VCB), Vietinbank (CTG) and VPBank (VPB).

However, gains in some pillar stocks cushioned the losses such as Masan Group (MSN) up 1.38 per cent, FPT Corporation (FPT) up 0.97 per cent, Vietnam International Commercial Joint Stock Bank (VIB) up 1.44 per cent and Techcombank (TCB) up 0.55 per cent. 

On the Hà Nội Stock Exchange (HNX), the HNX-Index edged higher on Monday, a rise of 0.23 points, or 0.08 per cent, to 284.63 points. 

During the session, more than VNĐ1.2 trillion was poured on the northern bourse, equal to a trading volume of 59.5 million shares. 

Foreign investors were net sellers on both main exchanges. Of which they net sold VNĐ115.93 billion on HoSE and VNĐ7.64 billion on HNX. VNS